TreeHouse Foods, Inc. (NYSE:THS) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Patrick O’Donnell: No we did we did not. We did guide free cash flow of at least $135 million, $130 sorry.

Carla Casella : Great thanks.

Operator: The next question comes from William Reuter from Bank of America. Your line is now open.

William Reuter: Good morning. My first question, on the new business wins that you laid out, were those wins that have been awarded to you since your initial guidance would have been provided. Were these kind of, these are some positive benefits and that they’re being offset by maybe a little bit of a delay in the broth facility? Or are these wins that you already knew you were going to be getting prior to guidance?

Steven Oakland: No this is the natural progression. We guide early in the year and these things tend to materialize as we go. So it’s sort of a rolling cycle. I would say these are probably new news. The broth progress as we spoke to earlier, we think is right on what we guided. We feel really good about that plan and we think it’s right on where we initially thought.

William Reuter : Got it. Is there any change in the competitive bidding environment for some of this private label volumes in terms of is, it becoming more or less competitive such that the profitability is either greater or less than it had been in the past?

Steven Oakland: No, I think there’s areas of volatility. Our business, although simpler than before is still a lot of different categories. So, I think it’s very category specific. I think it’s — we tend to do really well in those areas where we’re deep. Which means we have capability, we have cost structure and we have the assortment necessary, and then those other areas is where we’re investing to build that depth. We tend to find the margins the best in those places where we have all the capabilities and the cost structure appropriately aligned.

William Reuter : Got it. Then just lastly for me on capital allocation, you made some prepared comments about share repurchases. Last year you had a handful of acquisitions. What are you seeing in the M&A landscape and how do you think your capital will be allocated between potential additional acquisitions versus share repurchases?

Steven Oakland: Sure, I think we always said that our first priority for capital is to invest it in our business. The acquisitions you’ve seen of late have all been capability driven. We really addressed our capability gaps in coffee last year. We did that in pickles, here. It actually, we announced it last year but actually closed the first week of January. So, that M&A would be an opportunity to build capabilities in those key businesses where we see growth opportunities. So, I don’t see transformational M&A in the near term, never say never, but I don’t see that in the near term. But following that, then it’s about maintaining our balance sheet. Obviously balance sheet strength and then its returning capital to shareholders. So, we think we can do all three quite frankly.

William Reuter: Great. All right that’s all for me thank you.

Operator: The last question today comes from Jim Salera from Stephens, Inc. Your line is now open.

Jim Salera : Hi guys. Thanks for taking our question.

Steven Oakland: Yeah, good morning.

Jim Salera : Good mooning. I just wanted to ask on the labor front. I know we’ve heard other companies talk about labor being kind of one of the sticky areas of inflation across their input costs. Can you just give us any color you guys are seeing on labor for your manufacturing facilities, and any opportunity to leverage that as you move forward?

Patrick O’Donnell: Sure, Jim this is Pat. So, I would say, we are generally seeing some labor inflation, and that was built into the cost structure in terms of how we thought about the year to go forward. We’ve tried to be very forward in working with our locations to ensure we’ve got the right labor pool and we’re paying the right wages, and we’ve done that over a couple years. So, we think that, well there’s probably challenges depending upon location generally speaking, we feel like we’re in a pretty good place. So the investments we’ve made both from a wage as well as just shift schedules and things like that are trying to make us an attractive employer in those places in which we operate.